The flowers found all over the distillery grounds are pictured on the bottle painted by Hans Dillesse by assignment of Best of Whiskies.

On the nose I can find creamy flavours of vanilla, fudge and chocolate. Breakfast cereal notes, dried banana, candied oranges, mango juice, honey, ginger, coconut and some other tropical fruits. Soft, creamy, fruity, sweet nose with a hint of spices and tobacco in the back.

Spicy hot peppery notes at first on the palate mixing in with creamy different kind of fruits, almost like a good smoothie. Dried mango, banana and cocos shavings mixing in with creamy vanilla, powdered sugar, raspberry, black current, red apples, fudge, honey and marzipan. Honey sweetness sticking around for a good bit and revealing ginger and mocha cake on the decent length finish together with some soft fresh mint. A rich expression, really liking this rum a lot.

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maltfascination:

Apart from the Rum bottle share I don’t really drink a lot of rum. If anything, that bottle share sort of killed my apetite to sink some money into trying more. I know there’s good stuff out there, and I do find it an appealing concept. However, there’s so much randomness out there, that I don’t think I know enough about it to make an educated guess to what I like and dislike.

Luckily, sometimes you get a sample and get to try something new nonetheless.

On the nose, this Bellevue rum from Guadeloupe shows a lot of sweet alcohol, very different to the whisky described above. It’s rather sugary with lots of dark oak. Oak in the tropical way. Sugarwater, with a hint of glue (in a good way), but showing lots of spices. Clove is the one I am getting mostly. The palate is sharp and dry, with fresh hard wood, very different to the whisky again. Sawdust, dryness, sweet with clove, pepper and a lot of complexity. A slight chemical hint that is restraint enough to make it more interesting. The finish is very warming with charcoal and bonfire notes, hardwood, sweet barbecue and spices.

Well, luckily I got to try this indeed. This is a better rum than any in that bottle share and really shows how interesting it can be, as a category. A highly recommended drink if you’re looking to diversify and still have a very complex, cask strength drink at hand. Unless you don’t like spices that is. There’s a lot of that going on.